Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1887-09-16
DOCTOR TRIFULGAN
One Of Jules Verne's Impossible but
Highly Significant stories,

Whit ~ whistles the rising gale
'Swash ~ beats the rain as it comes down
in torrents. Low sway the trees under the
blast that sweeps the Volsinian shore and
dashes its fury against the slopes of the
mountains of Crimma. The rock bound
coat is rent and riven by the tempestuous
pillows that surge and foam along the vast
Megalocrida sea. Whit !" "Swash ~
In the depth Of the bay nestles the little
seaport town of Luktrop. 1t boasts IA few
hundred houses with greenish miradores
sheltering them from the winds of the
main, and four or five steep streets that
look more like the beds Of mountain tor
rent than public thoroughfares Not far
| off smokes the Vanglor an active volcano,
which by day belches forth thick volumes
Of sulphurous vapor and by night ftful
floods of flame. This crater, visible fully
100 kertses out at sea. answers the purpose
Of beacon, and guides home TO Iuktrop
the coasters-yawls SHOWS, boys and dog
gers-that plow the troubled waters of the
Megalocrida.
On the other side Of the town are heaped
up extensive ruins of the Crimmerian era
while the suburb, of Moorish aspect, with
its white walls, round roofs and terraces
calcined by the sun seems huge pile of
| square stones thrown together at haphaz-
ard and afar off reminds you of casbah
or Algerian fortress The whole mass in
fact, looks like cluster Of dice, the dots
of which have been worn away with age
| Among other structures peculiar to the
| place may be seen an odd looking building
called the six Quatre' from the number
of its windows, six in front and four in the
rear. \ steeple rises above the town, with
the square steeple Of Saint Philflen, with its
/ hollis tyi-ib1a tbrpttrb tho ot,ar, rt,rly
aud when they are swung-as they are at
| times-by the violence Of the storm, it is
accounted bad sign, and the good people
of the place are filled with fear at the omen
Such is Luktrop, with few stray houses
on the heath beyond, scattered amid the
| broom and furze, as in Brittany. Luktrop,
| however, is not in Brittany. Is it in
| France / cannot say. In Europe
| don't know. At any rate, it would be use
less perhaps to look up the place ON the
map, even in Steller's atlas
A discreet rap is heard at the small, mar
row door Of the 'Six- -Quatre," on the left
hand corner of the Rue Messagliere. A
comfortable house is the Six -Quatre, if
such word is known at Luktrop, and one
Of the thriftiest in the place, if to earn on
an average few thousand fretzers a year
Is a sign of thrift.
A ferocious yelp, something between a
bark and a howl, has answered the rap.
Soon a window above the door of the six
Quatre' is thrown open and an angry voice
from inside bawls out
"To the devil with all intruders -
\ young girl, shivering in the rain with
a seedy, worn out cape thrown over her
shoulders, inquiries if DR.. Trifulgas is at
home.
He is or isn't, that depends
Il come for father, who's dying
And where is he dying"
by the Val Karniou, four kertses hence. "
And what his name =
Wort kartif"
"What, Wort Kartif, the herring-cu =
Yes; and if Dr. Trifulgas would only
come
DIR. Trifulgas isn't at home
And the window is brutally closed in the
poor girls face, while the whiffs of the
wind and the swash of the rain outside
mix their voices in roaring and deafening
din.
A hard man is Dr. Trifulgas, with but
little feeling for a fellow creature, and one
who attends patient only if handsomely
paid in advance for his services His old
dog, Hurzof, cross between a bull and IA
spaniel, might he said to have more heart
than he The door of the "Six-Q -Quatre''
remains invariably closed upon the poor
and opens only to the rich. Moreover, DR..
Trifulgas has a whole scale of fees ty-
phoid fever, so much brain fever, so
much so much for pericarditis, and the
same for many more diseases as doctors
choose TO invent by the dozen. And Wort
Kartif, the herring -curer, is poor man
with penniless brood. Why, then, should
DR.. Trifulgas bedevil himself, and on such
a night
"Rousng me from my sleep, " snufed he,
as he went to bed again, sis alone worth III
fretzers ~
Twenty minutes had scarcely gone by
when the iron knocker again woke the ech-
oes of the 'Six-Quatre.n Grumbling, the
doctor got out of bed, and from the win
dow growled
"Who's there I"
wort Kartif's wife"
THE herring-curer from Val Karniou 7.
''Yes and if you don't come he'll die"
'Well, you'll then be a widow"
Here are 20 fretzers."
Twenty fretzers, muttered he "what
windfall to be sure. But the task of
catching cold and lumbago for such a
sum, when I've got to attend tomorrow
morning the equity but wealthy Edzingov,
at kiltrens, whose ailment is worth TO me
30 fretZers minute Not |, indeed ~
And with this pleasant prospect Dr. Trif-
ulgas sought his bed and went to sleep
again as soundly as before.
".
Whit, splash and then rap rap rap
Three blows from the knocker struck with
a firm hand, added their rattle this time Ia
the noise of the storm. The doctor, start
led in his slumber got up in towering pas
sion. On opening his window the storm
swept in like whirlwind
''ris for the herring curer"
what, that wretch again p
II am his mother
May his mother, wife and daughter die
with him ~
"'Tis a fit
aye, and tight one, no doubt chuck
led the doctor in his rage.
'We have a little money" said the old
woman, AN instalment on the house sold
to Dantrup, the drayman Of the Rue Mes
sagliere If you don't come, my grand
daughter will be without a father, my
daughter without husband and myself
without a SON.
1t was heart-rending and horrible to heaI
the old woman's voice, and think that the
icy wind froze the blood in her veins and
nipped the very bones under her skin.
"a fit, say you Then the fee is 2OC
fretzers, - rejoined the heartless leach.
"We have only 1870"
Good night, then !" and once more the
window was closed.
On the second thought, however, he came
to the conclusion that after all for an hours
walk and half an hours attendance l2C
fretzers made go fretzers an hour-onC
fretzer minute 1t was small profit al
best, but not to be entirely despised. So
instead of getting into bed again the doc
tor this time slipped on his velvet suit, hur
muffled himself up in a thick waterproof